Fun Fact Friday

Here's my "Fun Fact" for this week:

Did you know that there are only 7 different species of honey bee? So, most likely the bees that you see buzzing around your flower garden in the US are the same as the ones in mine. Isn't that cool? I wonder if mine buzz in Spanish?

Honey bees are generally mild-mannered and pretty tolerant of people poking around. At least our hive was pretty nonplussed by me sneaking in for a photo. I don't think I'd do it in the heat of summer, and I sure wouldn't go after these guys' honey without a good bee-suit (or Doug's coveralls and a motorcycle helmet duct-taped on). That's a lot of bees!

This beehive, which we found last year and basically ransacked to get the honey before hurricane season hit, has been rebuilt bigger and better than ever. Last summer, we got a little over 7 quarts of honey from our bee neighbors. I think we should have gotten more, but we're really inept. We're hoping to learn something more about bees, so we can be more efficient this year -- and not kill as many bees as we did last time. (Like I said, we're inept!)

Any beekeepers (novice or professional!!!) out there who want to share their knowledge???